Tuesday, December 20, 2011

We Enter Dachau

When we were standing in rows, waiting to be entered on the camp register, one of the SS guards came up and shouted: "Are there any priests here?" In our draft there were murderers and thieves. These he left, and called out the priests, abusing them savagely, spitefully, and striking them too when he chose. But it was Our Lord whom he wished to abuse, the cornerstone which the architects of the Reich had rejected. And yet, they could not circumvent Him! And in blaspheming Him again, whom they had so often proclaimed dead, they reaffirmed that He lived still - lived and showed Himself in His priests.

(By Albert Reisterer. From the collection Christ In Dachau, published by the Newman Bookshop, Oxford, 1952.)

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Memo to The Daily Mail: Do you see yourselves at all in the behaviour of the Nazis? I am well aware that uniquely among newspapers in the British Isles, the Daily Mail actually supported Hitler at one stage. But I am not referring to that fact. I am referring to your present day attempts to destroy the Bishop of Cloyne. I am suggesting that your ongoing manipulations of the news are tantamount to what the Nazis were doing at Dachau.*****(The above was first published in December of 2008. Hence the reference to the former Bishop of Cloyne Joseph Magee who was the media target du jour that Christmas. It was published again in 2009 when Irish media scoundrels were pursuing a different Bishop. This year Independent Newspapers, RTE and the Irish Times have renewed their attempts to vilify Bishop Magee, who is now in retirement. Their intent is as crass, worong minded, dishonorable and mendacious as it ever was.)